Search form

About Us

Over the last 30 years or more, the civil rights movement in India has emerged as an autonomous voice in defense of civil liberties and democratic rights of our people. The Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi, is one such organisation. It came into existence in 1977 as the Delhi unit of a larger national forum,PUCLDR, and became PUDR on 1 February, 1981.

Press Releases

PUDR condemns promulgation of The Jammu and Kashmir Public Property (Prevention of Damage) (Amendment) Ordinance by Mr NN Vohra, the Governor, Jammu and Kashmir on 26th October 2017, which criminalises anyone calling for a protest or demonstration which leads to damage of public property with an imprisonment of two to five years and fine as high as the market value of the property damaged. The speed with which State...

People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)
30th November, 2017
PUDR CONDEMNS ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT GAG ORDER IN
YOGI ADITYANATH’s HATE SPEECH CASE
On 7 November 2017, the Allahabad High Court ordered a gag on media reporting on the issue of sanction by the State to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for a speech deemed to incite violence, made in 2007. The Court order...

People’s Union for Democratic Rights
Press Statement
Condemn the continued violation of Rule of Law and use of draconian legal provisions in Kashmir
PUDR condemns the 36th Preventive Detention order served on Masarat Alam, leader of Muslim League and member of Tehreek-i-Hurriyat, led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The revolving-door-detention, where a person is booked under new detention order illegally...

People’s Union for Democratic Rights has long been drawing attention to egregious violation of rights of workers governed under various labour laws. Most important of these rights is the fundamental right to form trade union, so as to engage in collective wage negotiations and to ensure that conditions on shop floor do not become tyrannical.
Ever since the economic reforms began in India in 1991, attempts have...

Peoples Union for Democratic Rights strongly condemns the imposition of the National Security Act (NSA) against Bhim Army's founder leader Chandrashekhar Azad by Yogi Adityanath's government, on 3 November 2017, a day after he was granted bail by Allahabad High Court.
Chandrashekhar had been arrested on 8 June 2017 on charges of inciting violence and destruction of property, in connection with an incident of...

31 October 2017 - thirty three years have passed since the anti-Sikh pogrom carried out in Delhi between 31st October and 4th November 1984, following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh body guards. The official figure of those massacred in the violence stands at 2700, while according to unofficial estimates it is closer to 4000 in Delhi alone. The genocide spread to...

31 October 2017 - thirty three years have passed since the anti-Sikh pogrom carried out in Delhi between 31st October and 4th November 1984, following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh body guards. The official figure of those massacred in the violence stands at 2700, while according to unofficial estimates it is closer to 4000 in Delhi alone. The genocide spread to...

As the Hadiya-Shefin matter comes up for hearing today, PUDR urges the Apex court to take note of the serious violation of democratic rights of the parties involved in this so-called case of ‘Love-Jihad’. PUDR believes that the case is being used in order to provide legitimacy to the supposed presence of ‘Love-Jihad’ or ‘terror marriages following conversion to Islam’ in the country which is nothing more than a...

PUDR condemns the Criminal Laws (Rajasthan Amendment) Ordinance promulgated by the Rajasthan government on 7 September 2017, preventing magistrates from taking cognizance of complaints against serving and former Judges, Magistrates, and public servants without sanction of the government. This ordinance further gags the media from naming the accused till sanction is given by the government. The amendment made in the...

Right to protest has been coming under attack under one or other pretext. Earlier public order was the way in which our right to protest was curtailed by imposing IPC Section 144 on large parts of the Delhi city to prevent gathering of more than five persons. People were also confined to a small physical area, limiting the means and impact of resistance. Now, public health concerns are being invoked to throttle...

People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) expresses grave concern at the increasing incidents of violent attacks and gang wars in jail which severely threaten the life and security of the inmates. The Tihar jail authorities have faltered in fulfilling their responsibility of ensuring a safe atmosphere by failing to keep in check violent conflicts among prisoners, the brunt of which is being borne by those inmates...

PUDR condemns the arrest of peasant leader and RTI activist, Akhil Gogoi on charges of sedition and waging war by Assam police. Gogoi’s arrest is yet again a glaring example of the state’s frenzy in crushing political opposition by the use of repressive laws. Gogoi as the President of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) had been at the forefront in leading agitations against displacement of the poor in the name...

An 18 members team, consisting of 7 organisations belonging to the Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation (CDRO) visited Nagar Nar and met leaders of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) unions working in National Mineral Development Council’s (NMDC) Nagar Nar Steel Plant and listened about their long drawn struggle against privatisation of this plant....

Industrial Model Township (IMT) in Manesar, Haryana is known, not only as an industrial belt in the National Capital Region (NCR) but also as the home to the Maruti plant and the struggle by its workers. It is well known that 13 active union members of Maruti's Manesar plant have been given life imprisonment by the trial court recently. Workers in this unit managed to get their union registered in January 2012 after months of very hard struggle. The above...